


Find Me

by Topographical_Map_Of_Utah



Series: Look For The Force [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, Like 47 Years Before, M/M, Pre-Rogue One, Protective Baze, Young space dads, little baby Chirrut and Baze, well they're like six
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9394673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topographical_Map_Of_Utah/pseuds/Topographical_Map_Of_Utah
Summary: All is as the Force willed it to be, and its will lead Baze to where he needed to be.





	

 "You filthy little thief! Get back here or else I'll-"

Baze laughed in delight and slipped out of the clutch of Viado's swollen grey hands, darting nimbly down a crumbling staircase as he outmanoeuvred the stingy old merchant. The honey cake he had nabbed was crumbling in his grip but Baze didn't particularly mind, running full tilt through the throngs of arguing shoppers and vendors and pilgrims diligently making their way toward the temple, the conflicting smells of boiling stews and cured meats swirling in the air around him and making his eyes sting with spices. Market days were always good days. His mama released him while she bargained and bartered, whittling down the seller's demands until she deemed the price reasonable. That sometimes took a very long time, so Baze was free to do as he pleased, so long as his antics remained within the bounds of his mama's fairly lax rules.

"Don't steal." she had chided one day, discovering him hiding behind a merchant's wicker basket with his face sticky and purple from some dubiously obtained jogan fruit. "When you steal, you're hurting someone who's in the same position as us. So don't do it. Unless it's from him." she had added, a conspiratorial gleam in her warm brown eyes as she pointed out a stall with a rather sleazy proprietor. "Viado, you can take from any time you like. Just don't get caught, and if you can, give what you get to someone in a worse spot than you. You understand, Bazey?"

He had nodded, she had smiled, then the two of them had hustled out of the market before the juice on his face brought them any unwanted attention.

At six years old Baze felt he held the galaxy in his chubby little hands. He had his run of the Holy City, spent his free time darting between crates of ripe fruits and glittering metal wares, ducking under merchant's cluttered tables, ignoring any indignant curses aimed his way. So long as the tallest spire of the Kyber Temple was in sight, which it always was, Baze felt no fear.

Only today, he had ventured a little further than usual. He wasn't sure why. The temple faded in with the other buildings as he trotted down an unfamiliar, winding alleyway, empty aside from the occasional pilgrim and a rat or two. They were everywhere in this city. Once Baze had tried to domesticate one, with limited success. Since then he learnt to let them alone.

Clouds were gathering overhead, the beginning of what Baze's mother called a "rainy season". Now, Baze had never seen much rain in all his six years of living. He knew that it meant water would fall from the sky, but that seemed kind of silly. The ocean was silly, too, as were forests and something one of his friends called snow. All Baze knew of the galaxy was his little corner of it, the market and the dunes and the warmth of his mama's broad arms.

That world was all he knew and all he needed, for now at least.

When Baze emerged from the alleyway he hesitated, confronted with a sight that for some reason gave him pause. There was a little boy not too much younger than Baze himself sitting on the curb in a cloud of dust, wearing grey rags and holding a roughly hewn bowl out to passerbys, smiling a lost little smile when he heard the clink of credits on rusted metal. It seemed sound was all he had to go off of, seeing as his eyes were wrapped up with a crude bandage that was all matted up in his long black tangles of hair. Baze touched his own head, the curls tied in a neat knot at the base of his skull. He may be perpetually smudged with dirt and sticky, but at least his clothes didn't look like they were about to disintegrate and be blown off in the wind.

Baze knew what it meant to not have much. More often than not his mother went without lunch or dinner, claiming that she had already eaten. Even at his age Baze knew she was lying. She would never accept any food he offered her, though. Apparently little kids needed more to eat. It didn't really make sense to him, but she was adamant about that. So seeing as this kid was even littler than Baze, he must need it even more.

Feeling self-sacrificial for the first time in his short life, Baze tentatively approached the strange boy, who was rocking and humming to himself, one of the chants you could sometimes hear rising from the Temple.

" _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am..._ " As Baze approached the boy's ears perked up like a Loth-cat and he turned to face him with a tight-lipped smile. "Friend, could you spare-" the boy paused in his script and cocked his head, chewing thoughtfully on his chapped lower lip. He must have noticed that the paces were to soft to belong to an adult. "You're not a grown up."

"No, I'm not. My name's Baze." he crouched in front of the boy, scrutinizing the thin, grimy neck and shoulders poking out of his patchy tunic, so at odds with the babyish softness of his chin. "Why's your face got bandages?"

"I'm blind. The bandage is just to make me look sad so people feel badder for me. Skobra said it's better that way. And he says I'm funny-looking without it. He also said I'm not allowed to talk to nobody 'sides what he tells us to say. I'm breaking the rules, I guess." the boy shrugged, unapologetic. "But you sound nice, so I don't care. I'm named Chirrut."

The name Skobra sent a shiver down Baze's spine. The bogeyman of Jedha, he was said to be a Mandalorian who operated what could only be described as a begging circle on the outskirts of town. He rounded up orphans, the more damaged the better, and scattered them across the city to guilt credits out of the faithful pilgrims. He and his brigade of miscreants were like a fairy tale, shrouded in myth and fear.

It was said that they waylaid travelers, committed arson, scooped bad children right out of their beds and carried them off into the night. If Baze ever saw one, he was to turn tail and run. Instead, he knelt in front of the strange little boy and gently took the bowl out of his hands, replacing it with the half-eaten pastry. 

"It's a honey cake. You can have it." he said generously. For a moment Baze felt something akin to regret, but Chirrut's smile when he took his first bite extinguished any of Baze's misgivings. As Chirrut ate in careful rodent bites Baze watched him, wondering where he had come from and how he had gotten here. "Where's your family?"

"With the Force." Chirrut said calmly, as though that were a reasonable answer.

"Where's the Force?"

"Everywhere. All over." To emphasize Chirrut waved his arms about after sticking the cake in his mouth for safekeeping. "Mmph-It's like air, kinda. Not really."

"So how come I can't see it?" 

 "It's not somethin' you see. You feel it in here." Chirrut pointed at his hollow tummy, where he imagined his heart was located. "My family is with the Force, so they're always with me. That way I'm not ever lonely." 

"Huh. You're funny." Baze said flatly. "I like you, though."

"You do?" Chirrut asked brightly, licking his fingers for the sugary residue on his fingertips.

"Yeah."

It was a funny type of liking, though, deeper than his coarse friendship with the other street urchins. Baze didn't quite know how to describe it. All he knew was that this spindly child sitting on a moth-eaten blanket made a funny feeling build up inside him, something big and warm and strangely grown-up. He could barely take care of himself, and here he was wanting more than anything to protect this stranger who wasn't really a stranger anymore, who Baze knew would grow to mean something to him, something he didn't understand quite yet.

"I'm taking you home." he decided suddenly, proudly puffing out his chest at the idea. "Our house is kinda little, but you're little too, so that's not gonna be a problem. My mama's the nicest lady in the whole galaxy. She's gonna find parents for you, and you're gonna be happy, and no one's gonna make you cover your eyes no more." 

"Really?"

"Really." Taking immediate action, Baze set to work on untying the bandages, wrinkling his nose when he touched what felt to be blood, old and crusted. "Skobra won't come looking for you, will he?" 

"No. Kids don't come back a lot. He doesn't care where we go." Chirrut said, his tone a little softer.

"Well, I care where you go." Baze affirmed as he pulled away the bandage and got his first good look at Chirrut. His eyes were wide and pupilless, irises a soft shade of milky blue. It was different, sure, but Baze didn't see why Chirrut had been made to hide them. As he was staring, though, the sky started to do something strange, making a deep, growly noise above their heads and spitting something wet. Baze looked up, fearful that he would see a starfighter right out of his mama's stories, but there was nothing but heavy grey clouds looming over the city.

"What's happening?" Chirrut was grabbing around for something to hold on to and Baze gave his hand a squeeze, as much to comfort Chirrut as to calm himself.

"I think..." It happened again and they both gulped. "I think it's called thunder." That's what mama had said, he thought. "Yeah, thunder. And the stuff that's falling - those're rains."

 "Oh." Chirrut breathed. "I've heard of rain." Tentative, he turned his face up, sticking out his tongue to catch a couple drops on his tongue, smiling when he managed. "Can it hurt us?"

"I don't think so. It's cold, though. Let's go home."

"Okay. Let's go home." Chirrut repeated, smiling as the word _home_ crossed his lips. It was something special, after all. As he got to his feet and let Baze drape his sweater over him Chirrut cocked his head and reached out, settling his fingertips gently on the curve of Baze's cheek, exploring with touch what most took for granted. "Baze? What do you look like?" 

"I look like me." The answer made Chirrut laugh, for some reason. He placed his hands in Baze's and gave him a big smile with one tooth missing. His gaze was tilted a little bit skyward, like a flower greeting the sun. Or the rain, which was beginning to come down in big, fat drops. 

"But what does _me_ look like?"

"Like you, but different." Baze philosophized, helping Chirrut up onto his back. Carrying him home seemed safest. And besides, Baze didn't want to risk his new friend tripping and landing flat on his face.

"That describes most people, don't it?" When Chirrut pointed that out Baze shushed him, the way his mama sometimes did when her head was hurting, but Chirrut just laughed as he secured his arms around Baze's neck.

For awhile they went on in easeful silence, Baze splashing in puddles and Chirrut humming the mantra from earlier in his ear. While they were hunkering down in a doorway waiting for the downpour to subside he piped up again, quiet as a grain of sand rolling down a dune.

"I knew this would happen. Everybody said I was silly, but I knew today was special." Chirrut whispered under the rattle and clatter of rain striking the sheet metal roof, the closest thing to a symphony either of them had ever known. "I felt it."

"'Cause of the Force?" Baze asked, voice airy with wonder.

"Yeah. I knew somebody would find me." Chirrut squeezed him a little tighter, and Baze swore he felt a flicker of warmth, right where Chirrut had claimed the Force was, right where you carry around everyone you love. "I'm happy you found me."

"I'm happy I found you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> idk man i wanted tiny space babies


End file.
